Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1887-11-09
VERY SINGULAR RIVER.
An Anomaly in Nature---But Little
Changed Since the Day of Its
Birth.

As 1 said, know not what to call
this Saguenay. Rivers have banks,
but it has none; for lofty and precip-
itous cliffs, mountains of rock, precl-
pices that rise ZOO feet sheer upward
from the tide and beetling crags-these
cannot, without misuse OF language,
be called river banks. Nor is it fit to
call II stream, for a stream Is line
OF flowing water smaller than a river,
and the Saguenay is from one and
half to two miles wide, and from 400
TO 1000 feet in depth, and all this
monstrous depth of water Is in mo-
tion. Nor 10 il an outlet merely, for
into 1t flows the surplus water of
Lake st. John. But this lake is
shallow, not deep, and but little
more than half the length of the
Ssguenay. and hence its flowage, large
as it is, is but a tlthe, nay, only a
hundredth part OF what the latter
holds and pours into the st. Lawrence
daily. Hence, if we call the Sague-
nay a river. it Is not because that
word describes it or Is a proper title
10 it, but because of its strange char
acteristics. 1t stands an anomaly in
nature, and there is no better name to
give it than TO call it a river.
Its waters are colored, nor is their
color like to any other river l have
ever seen. They have been called
black by many writers who would have
written OF them, but they are not
black, but rather a transparent brown,
like as common water is when
looked at through smoked glass. l
say transparent, Tor they are very pure
and clear. and, dark as they are, the
eye sees deeply and easily into them.
A white stone or piece OF tin can be
perceived at a great depth-as deeply
down as they might be in the waters
OF the HORIZON, which L nave often
thought were the pareSt and cleanest
in the world. Moreover. the SUM-
beams penetrate its dark brown cur
rents easily, and the long lances of
light shot into the brown depths by
the solar rays look as the sunlight looks
Yhen shining through the stained
windows OF great catnedrais.
Whence its waters get this strange
quality, this indescribably gloomy and
sinister tinge, none can say, and sa.
wants do hot even pretend TO guess,
for all the currents which flow into il
are mountain streams and crystalline,
and the contributions of the sea which
the tical lift pours into it are clear
and blue of tint. Nor can it come
from any colorIng matter released by
natures chemistry acting upon its
rocky walls and bottom, for the ma
lture Of these is known, and plain
granite quartz and gneiss are the DOM
inant structures. But whatever be
the cause of it, the color of IFS
waters is, as L have described, a
brown, with almost a purple tiDge,
and has to the eye, seen from a dis
tanee, a most grewsoms look, gloomy
lana sinister, as If 1t came from some
other world than ours, whose waters,
unless dlscolored from causes discov-
i-1.-o.o1to NE, are pure and sparkling
Imagine, now, q vast valume Of this
strange looking water, two miles In
width, 1,OO0 feet in depth, pouring out
between monstrouS opening between
contiguous mountains, made by some
mighty throe of nature, Travelling in
agony, to bring forth an awful birth
an opening which Is not simply a rent
made through lofty range, but as if
a long, high ridge of primeval rock
rock old as the beginning of the world
running north and south. had been
split apart along Its entire length of
forty miles, exactly in the centre, and
the two halves wedged violently apart
until the Jagged, precipitous, cavern
GUS sides stood two miles asunder, and
through this tremendous opening,
through the very centre of this huge
ridge of rock, vast, deep, almost
fathomless volume of gloomy colored
water began to now, and you have in
your mind fairly good picture Of what
the Saguenay was at Its birth. and
what it is to-day.
For of all rivers on the globe this,
from necessity. has changed the least.
Here and there the frost and heat,
the SHOWS and rains of 10000 years
have worn down the sharp edges and
rounded the flinty verge of overhang-
ing preclpices; here and there the wash
and wear Of centuries have deposited
50 much OF soil that trees can ind a
foothold, but save this all Is to-day on
either hand, as you sail up it's darkling
tide, as it was when first born in ma
ture's darkest hour and sternest agony,
Its gloomy currents began to boil and
whirl and iow. Every other river on
the face of the earth has changed its
banks and bed, but this strange river
has changed not at all, aad cannot
change until the end Of time.